Went here during Riverfest, day 2, with my father in law; we did the same thing last year. We like going here to take a break from the heat and having a cheap drink.
Before I go any further, I have to let people know that this is an adult dive bar, not a family restaurant. Apparently this has been advertised different via groupon because we talked to a family of five(3 of which were small children, the oldest being no more than 6 years old) sitting in one the poorly crafted booths. The bar tender did his best to let the mother know that was a 'BAR' without degrading the establishment. She failed to take the hint and ordered food. Not sure how it went for them but I can imagine not good.
All that said, let me add I went to culinary school, I am an air traffic controller, and I know my way around bars(I know good food, I know how to drink, and I know a good bar).
I first ordered an 'old fashioned,' which was pretty tasty. Â It is hard to screw this drink up but if an establishment does it pretty much paves the way for what is to come. Next we grabbed menus and ordered some Pabst. This isn't good beer by any means but it has better reviews on <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2FBeerAdvocate.com&s=77e4eae0dd0d9d354267ce7fc564efcb87c93df499768dc29beafbfb225e9b88" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://BeerAdvocate.com</a> than Miller, Coors, and Bud Light, so I made the switch when it comes to fizzy yellow piss-beer.
I have come to adopt ordering a salad to gauge what a restaurant can really do. If a restaurant really cares about food, it will show in a salad. I should have thought a little deeper about where I was, a dive bar. I guess my first few beers inhibited a good decision on food.
Salad arrived and I could tell right away it was generic, bagged salad and was not fresh. It appeared the tomatoes were either pre-cut offsite or were cut on site and stored for a few days; same with the onions. The meat, smoked turkey and ham, was also not prepared on site either(tho perhaps it was chopped on site). I also ordered ranch and I received no dressing at all...how do you mess that up? My father in law ordered a bubba burger and fries. The fries were frozen, pre-fried fries and the burger looked pretty bad. The bun looked like a Wal-Mart bought Sara Lee bun, with an over cooked beef patty to match. Father in law said it was 'okay,' and this comes from a man who thinks a whopper is 'the heat!' Take that information as you will.
I also have to add that the owners committed the shameful act of reviewing their own bar, giving it 5 stars. This was pointed out to Yelp they subsequently removed those reviews.
We finished up our beers and observed the 'trash' walking around the bar, which was pretty entertaining. Oh and I have to mention our bar tender, who was awesome. Didn't catch his name but he had long hair and a goatee. Real nice, attentive, made good drinks, and was good at multitasking; better than most bar tenders. He was awesome and was definitely the life line of this place.
Conclusion:
The place is obviously a dive bar. You don't come here for food or for good margaritas. You come here to rest your feet or to get hose'd off of cheap beer and well-drinks. What really pisses me off about the place is that the owners crafted the menu to disguise the place as a Gastro-Pub; the food sounds great on paper but delivery is extremely pathetic; there is nothing good or exciting about the food at all. I wouldn't even refer to this as 'okay' bar food, it was crap at best and wasn't even their own creation. Â I would have more respect for the place if they made their own food and it sucked than to be served the imitation food we were served. If you run a dive bar, just serve drinks. If you insist on serving food, take some pride in serving good food; even if it is a limited menu of 5 or 6 items. It isn't much more work, doesn't take a whole lot of skill, and if it is good, you can make hefty extra profit off of just a couple items.
Not the worst dive bar but it is on my top 3. I recommend avoiding, unless you enjoy dive bars. Me personally, I will likely be back for some cheap beer or to beat the heat. Â Have low expectations and enjoy a cheap drink.
Pros:
-$2 cheap beer(Pabst, Miller, Coors, Bud Light).
-Nice place to start a binge or cool off during the day.
-Karaoke(if your into that).
-Had a great bar tender.
Cons:
-Place is grimy, old, and falling apart; screams dirty/divey/trashy.
-Bathrooms suck. 4 foot wide troth, 1 stall; dirty everything.
-Food was awful, I would rather have stale peanuts than the crap they served.
-Bar was poorly designed, bartenders do not easily move in the compact area behind the bar and thus have difficulty providing expeditious service, despite their best efforts. Â We noticed this many times during our experience.
-Bartenders appeared to be working harder than they should have; management, although working somewhat hard, was slacking and not working as hard as their subordinates. Â You guys might run the place but your work ethic falls short of what the people below you are doing.
Not the worst bar ever, though nothing I would recommend at all. Â Downstairs from Bosco's this is just a dive with some pretty bad pub grub. Â I am sure they get a lot of patrons just because of the location. Â right by the river, and always something going on in the area. Â Though there is nothing here that I would recommend. Â Seems they have plenty of regulars anyway which is good for them. Â Though no other reason for anyone else to make a visit.
Review Source:First and last visit.
Stopped in for lunch on a Tuesday around noon. This place should stick with being a bar and stop serving food. The first thing that hit me was the old beer smell as I walked in. It has to be the carpets that hold the smell, or at least it looks like it.
The decor was very fitting for a country bar, looks like a fun place for a few beers..... Maybe after you've had a few beers. Â
So I waited a short amount of time for a waitress and asked her what was good. She immediately recommended the Day's special. I asked her if the burger was good and she said go for the special. So I did.......
She delivered me 2 tacos, cup of corn, and a cup of rice. This was absolutely the worst thing that I have ever had in my life. How do you mess up Tacos! You mess them up by serving greasy taco meat. The plate slowly started to fill up with the grease from the meat. The tacos are served meet and shell only. You have to go to the nacho bar to get your toppings. If you do this, then hurry, because your hard taco will be a soft taco by the time you get back from the dingy nacho bar.
The corn was some aweful version of cream-style/corn salsa......served at cold/room temp/ and parts of it steaming hot.
The rice looked and tasted like it was supposed to red beans and rice, but had the consistency of rice pudding. Also served at 3 temperatures.
While I am writing this, I just checked the menu, and niether the rice or corn are offered on the menu, nor were Tacos. Not sure where they brought in the food from but it was awful.
I broke my own rule on this one, don't order a burger at a fish house or pizza from a mexican restaurant. Now I say don't order food at a dive beer joint.
Waitresses were friendly and seem embarrassed when she picked up my uneaten food.. Kinda tells me that this is the norm.
UPDATE: Yelp filtered the reviews which were from management which had 5 stars looks like they learned to give 4 stars instead.
As you can see either both owners and an employee gave a five star review or one of each. After our first visit I decided to return and see if 1) the service was better 2) the food was decent.
1) the service still is terrible, slow, rude and can't answer a question about the food.
2) The food was some of the worst I have encountered.
Regardless of opening after a week or a month, the owners should concentrate on staff, food and training all three are really lacking.
I also really find it amazing that two people one day apart gave such great reviews with no friends or other reviews. All three 5 star reviews are obviously owners. Sad that one has to resort to BS reviews rather than trying to make a decent restaurant.
            AWFUL FOOD RUDE SLOW BAD SERVICE
Either it is a bar with bad food or a place that has food that is a bad bar.
I'm glad that my fellow reviewer had a positive experience recently  however, was hardly the case for my husband and I. We eat out quite frequently and to be honest, I can't remember the last time that we got up and walked out of a place before we got a chance to sample the food. But that's what happens when you have to wait 30 minutes just to get a menu and two cups of iced tap water.
When we first walked in between 2 and 3 PM on this beautiful Saturday afternoon, we saw the place had people in it, but hardly busy. Sadly the place was seriously understaffed. After standing in the doorway (while admiring the quaint red-neck decor and snapping photos to post on FourSquare and Facebook) a hurried waiter finally said to us as he rushed by, "Just sit anywhere you like."
OK, not the end of the world. So we find a table out on the patio and wait another 20 minutes for the waiter to finally come back. He asked us, "So what would you like?" (We didn't have menus nor had we been waited on by anyone yet.) My husband replied, "I don't know. What do you have?" The waiter was a bit irritate with my husband's non answer so he replied with something to the effect of, "Why don't we make this easy? What do you want?" So I intervened and asked for something to drink. I asked if they had any diet soda. At this point the waiter got very irritated and said, "Look, we don't have ANY diet soda." Since neither my husband or I were drinking alcohol, the only alternative was to ask for water.
The waiter came back 10 minutes later with two plastic cups of iced tap water and proceeded to try to take our order. It was at this juncture that we pointed out to him that we can't order if we don't know what they serve. This made the waiter even more irritated with us. He handed me a paper menu (with print on both sides, sorta plays into the whole red neck theme I suppose) and rushed off. So after looking at the bar food (My husband and i mistakenly thought that this was a BBQ restaurant. Our bad. It is not. It appears to be a bar where they have bands where they also serve bar food which includes some BBQ food. ...I guess.
OK, still not the end of the world. Â After another 10 minutes passed, we left 2$ underneath one of the plastic cups of iced tap water, got up and walked out. We passed the waiter on our way out. He said NOTHING to us... Â I mean NOTHING.
In the nearly 6 years that my husband and I have been dining out together, I must say that this was a definite first. Sadly, not a good one. Â
Ah well, yet another small business that will likely be closing its doors too soon. Which is truly a shame. We prefer to stay local and spend our money in the community. The atmosphere was amusing and we were truly looking forward to good BBQ.
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